Kusamakura

  She evades the problem by dismissing it. “What a cramped little world it is!” she exclaims. “It has only length and breadth. You like this sort of two-dimensional world? A crab is what you are.”

  I burst out laughing. The bush warbler that has just begun to call by the eave breaks off his song at the sound and flies away to a farther branch. We both pause in our talk and listen intently for a while, but once interrupted that voice will not easily begin again.

  “You met Genbei on the mountain yesterday, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did you visit the grave of the Nagara maiden on your way here?”

  “I did.”

  “‘As the autumn’s dew that lies a moment on the tips of the seeding grass so do I know that I too must fade and be gone from this brief world,’” she recites swiftly, without any modulation to her voice. I can’t guess what has prompted her.

  “Yes, I heard that poem at the teahouse yesterday.”

  “The old lady told you, did she? She came as a servant to our house originally, you know, before I went off as a . . .” she begins, then casts me a quick glance to see how I’ll react. I feign ignorance.

  “It was while I was still young. Every time she came I’d tell her the story of the Nagara maiden. She could never remember the poem, but eventually she heard it so often that she did manage to memorize it all.”

  “Aha, so that’s it. I must say I wondered how she came to know something so difficult. But it’s a touching poem, isn’t it?”

  “Is it touching? I wouldn’t compose a poem like that, myself. To begin with, how silly to go throwing yourself into a pool.”

  “Yes, I suppose it is, now that you mention it. What would you do?”

  “There’s no question what I’d do. The only thing to do is to have the two men as your paramours.”

  “Both of them?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re amazing.”

  “There’s nothing amazing about it. It’s perfectly obvious.”

  “Yes, I see—in that case you wouldn’t have to commit yourself to either the flea world or the mosquito world, would you?”

  “One can get by in life without having to think like a crab, after all.”

  At this moment the half-forgotten bush warbler, its full energy restored, bursts out with a startlingly splendid high-pitched call. Hooo-hoKEkyo! Once revitalized, the lilting calls begin to flow forth again seemingly of their own accord. “Body flung upside down,” as the famous haiku has it.8 The base of its swelling throat atremble, its “small mouth” almost split open with the fullness of its song, as the bird calls again and again.

  Hoo-hoKEkyoo! Hooo-hoKEkkyoo!

  “Now that is real poetry,” she says firmly.

  CHAPTER 5

  “Pardon my asking, but I’m guessing you’re from Tokyo, are you, sir?”

  “I look like a Tokyo man, do I?”

  “Look like it? Why, a single glance . . . First off, I can tell just from hearin’ you speak.”

  “Can you tell whereabouts in Tokyo?”

  “Yees, well, Tokyo’s awful big, ain’t it. But I’d make a stab it’s not the downtown part. Uptown Yamanote area, I’d say. Maybe Kojimachi? No? Well then, Koishigawa? Well, it must be Ushigome or Yotsuya, then?”

  “Not too far wrong, yes. You certainly know your Tokyo, don’t you.”

  “You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but I’m an old Tokyoite myself.”

  “So that’s it. I could tell you had some style.”

  He chuckles. “Not a bit of it! Just look at me now, misery that I am. . . .”

  “So how did you end up spending your days in a place like this?”

  “No kidding, you’ve hit the nail on the head there, sir. End up here is exactly what I’ve done. Just couldn’t make ends meet. . . .”

  “Have you always been boss of a barbershop?”

  “Not a boss, a worker. What’s that? Where, you say? I worked in Matsunaga-cho in Kanda. Tiny filthy little place it is, Matsunaga-cho, not even room to swing a cat. The likes of you wouldna heard of it. You know Ryukanbashi Bridge? What? Don’t know that either? Ryukanbashi, famous bridge.”

  “Hey, could you soap that up a bit more? It’s hurting.”

  “Hurts ya, does it? I’m the fussy type, ya know, not happy till I can dig right in and get every hair on yer face, like this, shavin’ against the grain, see? Not something your barber of today does, oh no, he just strokes, he does. You just put up with it a bit longer.”

  “I’ve been putting up with a lot for quite a while now. Come on, add a bit more hot water or soap, can’t you?”

  “Can’t take it, huh? It didn’t oughta be that painful. Yer whiskers have gotten too long, that’s what the problem is.”

  Reluctantly, he lets go of the pinch of flesh he’s been gripping on my cheek. Then he takes down a wafer of red soap from the shelf, dips it briefly in cold water, and without further ado quickly runs it all over my face. I’m not at all used to the experience of having raw soap rubbed over me like this; nor am I too impressed with the water he dips it in, which looks as if it’s been sitting there who knows how long.

  My rights as a barbershop customer compel me to face a mirror. For some time now, however, I must admit I have felt the urge to forgo this privilege. A mirror fulfills its allotted purpose only if it has a flat surface that reflects the human face without distortion. If you set up a mirror that fails to meet these requirements and force a man to face it, you are committing willful damage to his features quite as much as does the bad photographer. The destruction of a man’s vanity is no doubt a valuable aid to the cultivation of character, but there’s no need to show a man a face that does less than justice to his own, then insult him by asserting that it is himself.

  The mirror that I’m at present compelled to gaze into has been thus insulting me for some considerable time. If I turn to the right, my face is all nose, while the left profile splits my face from mouth to ear. When I raise my head, my features are squashed flat, with an effect reminiscent of looking face-on at a toad. If I lower my face a little, my forehead suddenly towers like some freakish faery child of the long-headed god Fukurokuju.1 So long as I sit before this mirror, I am forced to double as all manner of ghoulish monster. Of course there’s no getting around the fact that my own face is far from a thing of beauty, but the glaring defects of this mirror—its poor color, and the mottled patches of light where the reflective backing has peeled off—surely make it a supremely ugly thing in its own right. Granted that only a fool will take to heart the abuses heaped on him by an obnoxious child, nevertheless no one enjoys spending any length of time in the presence of the insulting brat.

  And it’s not only the mirror; this barber is no ordinary barber, either. When I first peered into the shop, I found him sitting there cross-legged, looking mildly bored, drawing at his long-stemmed pipe and sending a constant stream of smoke over a toy flag set celebrating the Anglo-Japanese Alliance that hung on his wall.2 But now that I’m inside and have entrusted my head to his ministrations, this benign impression has received a shock. He wrenches and mauls so mercilessly, as he scrapes away at the whiskers, that I’m almost at a loss to decide whether I still hold any right of possession to my own head or whether all such power has now officially passed to him. At this rate, even were my head nailed firmly to my shoulders, it wouldn’t survive intact for long.

  During the time he is wielding the razor, this man becomes not barber but barbarian, quite beyond the accepted rules of civilization. Even while the razor is merely going over my cheeks, it rasps and grates; when it sets to work by my ear, the artery in my temple leaps in panic; and as the fearsome blade flashes at my chin, it produces an extraordinary crunching sound, like ice being crushed underfoot. And this is a barber who fancies himself the most consummate in the land!

  To top it off, he’s drunk. An odd smell envelops me whenever he drawls his “sirs” at my ear, and from time to time my nostrils are
assailed by a peculiar vapor. When and how his razor may slip, and where it will fly when it does so, only fate can decide. I’m in no position to be able to guess myself, having yielded my face to his ministrations—even he who wields the blade has no clear idea of his razor’s aim, heaven knows. I’ve surrendered myself to him on a mutual understanding, so I don’t intend to complain about the odd nick I might receive, but if matters suddenly took a nasty turn and I were to have my windpipe sliced open, that would be quite another matter.

  “Only a greenhorn’d shave this way with soap, but it can’t be helped, with your tough whiskers, sir,” he remarks, tossing the wet bit of soap unceremoniously back onto the shelf. The soap, however, refuses to obey and instead slithers off and tumbles to the ground.

  “Haven’t seen you around much, sir,” he continues. “Come here recently, did you?”

  “Just a couple of days ago.”

  “That so? Where’re you based?”

  “I’m staying at Shioda’s.”

  “A guest there, eh? That’s what I thought. Matter of fact, I’m here thanks to the old gentleman meself. See, he was down the road from me when he was up in Tokyo, that’s how I got to know him. Good fellow. Knows a thing or two. His lady wife died last year, and he spends all his time messin’ about with his collection of stuff these days. Got some fantastic things, they say. They’d fetch a fine price if he sold them, the story goes.”

  “There’s a pretty daughter there too, isn’t there?”

  “You wanna watch out for her.”

  “Why so?”

  “Why? Well, I shouldn’t be tellin’ tales, but she’s back from a failed marriage, she is.”

  “Is that so?”

  “‘That’s so’ to say the least of it! There weren’t no cause for her to come back home really. She left because the bank went bust and they had to watch their pennies—no sense of duty. All very well while the old gentleman’s still on his pins, but when worse comes to worst, well, it’ll be a bad state of affairs.”

  “Will it then?”

  “’Course it will. There’s bad blood with the older brother in the main house.”

  “There’s a main house, is there?”

  “Main house is up on the hill. Go take a look. Great view up there.”

  “Hey, a bit more soap there, please. It’s hurting again.”

  “These whiskers of yours do a lot of hurtin’, I must say. Too tough, that’s their problem. You need to put the razor to these at least once every three days, sir. If you think my shavin’ hurts, you won’t stand a chance with any other barber.”

  “I’ll do that. I could come along every day, if you like.”

  “You plannin’ on spendin’ that long here, are you? Watch out. Better not. No good will come of it. You let yourself get hooked by that good-for-nothing girl, there’s no tellin’ what will happen.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “That girl of yours looks good, but she’s a loony.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Look, the whole village says she’s crazy.”

  “There must be some mistake there, surely.”

  “No, no, there’s more than proof enough. Look, best just drop the idea. Too risky.”

  “Don’t you worry about me. So what proof is there?”

  “It’s a weird story. Here, settle down and have a smoke if you like, and I’ll tell you. Wash your hair for you?”

  “No, let’s leave it at that.”

  “I’ll just get rid of the dandruff, eh?”

  Without further warning, the barber brings ten filthy claws down hard onto my skull and commences to scrape them fiercely back and forth. His nails thrust themselves between every hair on my head, to and fro, with the speed and ferocity of a giant’s rake whirling about over a barren wasteland. I don’t know how many thousands of hairs my head holds, but as his fingers go gouging about, each one of them seems to be being ripped from its roots, and the surface that remains feels as if it’s hatched all over in raised welts. The ferocious energy of those fingers transmits itself down through the skull and rattles my very brains.

  “How’s that? Feels pretty good, eh?”

  “You certainly have astonishing powers.”

  “Eh? A fine massage like that gives everyone a lift.”

  “I feel as if my head’s about to fly off.”

  “Feeling limp and feeble, are we? It’s all to do with the weather. Spring sure does make the old body go all floppy, doesn’t it? Ah well, have a smoke. You’ll be feeling bored, all alone there at Shioda’s. Drop over for a chat. We old Tokyoites, we got lots in common the others wouldn’t understand, eh? So that girl comes along and says hello to you, does she? No sense of right and wrong, that’s the trouble with her.”

  “Weren’t you just going to tell me something about her when suddenly dandruff was flying around and my head almost went with it?”

  “True enough, true enough. Can’t keep a story together in this silly head of mine. Right, so then that priest feller gets all funny for her . . .”

  “What priest is that?”

  “That useless underling of a fellow at Kankaiji temple.”

  “I haven’t come across any priest in the story yet, underling or otherwise.”

  “That so? Sorry, I’m a bit hasty. Fine figure of a feller he was, sort of priest who’d be hot for the ladies, bit of you-know-what. Ends up he sends a letter—hey there, hang on a moment. Did he come after her? Nah, it was a letter right enough. And then—there was, um—gone’n gotten a bit muddled here. Ah, right, yes, that’s it. Big surprise, right?”

  “Who got surprised?”

  “She did.”

  “She got a surprise when she received the letter?”

  “Well, it’d be another matter if she was the modest sort who’d get surprised, wouldn’t it. Dear me, no, not her, nothing’d surprise that one.”

  “So who got surprised, then?”

  “The feller what came after her.”

  “But you said he didn’t come after her.”

  “Right. Got it around my neck a bit, too impatient. Gets a letter.”

  “So it was the woman, then.”

  “No, no, the man.”

  “You mean the priest.”

  “Sure, the priest.”

  “So why was the priest surprised?”

  “Why? Well, he’s in the hall saying sutras with the abbot when suddenly in she rushes.” The barber snickers. “She’s a loony right enough.”

  “Did she do something?”

  “‘If you love me so much, let’s make love right here in front of the Buddha,’ says she, just like that, and she throws herself around Taian’s neck.”

  “Good heavens.”

  “Really shook ’im up, it did. Goes and sends a letter to a loony, and now just look at the shame she’s caused him. So that night away he creeps, and puts an end to ’imself.”

  “He died?”

  “Must’ve. How could he live after a thing like that?”

  “How bizarre.”

  “Darn right. Still, if the other party’s a loony, you’d be pretty depressed if you’d put an end to yerself, so maybe he’s still alive, who knows?”

  “It’s a fascinating story.”

  “Fascinating? Why, the whole village was laughin’ fit to bust. But as for her, she’s crazy of course, so she just went about calm as you please, didn’t turn a hair. Well, a fine sensible gentleman like yerself, sir, there’d be no trouble of that sort, but bein’ who she is, you’d only have to tease her a bit, say, and who knows what mightn’t happen.”

  “Perhaps I’ll tread a bit carefully, then,” I say with a laugh.

  A salty spring breeze wafts up from the warm shore, and the barbershop curtain over the door flaps drowsily. The reflection of a swallow flashes across the mirror as the slanting shape comes diving in beneath the curtain to its nest under the eaves. An old man of sixty or so is squatting under the eaves of the house across the road, quietly shucking shellfish.
Each click of his knife against a shell sends another red sliver of flesh tumbling into the depths of the bamboo basket, followed by a sudden glitter as another empty shell flies across a shimmering band of light to land two feet or so away. Is it oysters, or surf clams, or perhaps razor clams, lying there in that high mound of empty shells? Here and there the midden has collapsed, and some of its shells have slipped down to lie on the floor of the sandy stream behind, carried out of the transient world to a burial in the realm of darkness. No sooner is a shell’s burial completed than a fresh one is added to the pile beneath the willow. The old man works on, tossing shell after shell through the shimmering sunlight, never pausing to ponder their fate. His basket seems bottomless, his spring day an endless tranquil expanse of time.

  The sandy stream runs beneath a little bridge a bare twelve feet or so long and bears its waters on toward the shore. Out there where its spring flow joins the shining spring sea, fathoms of fishing nets are looped up to dry in an uneven jumble of lengths. Perhaps it is these that impart to the soft breeze, blowing in through the nets to the village, a warm, pungent smell of fish. That sluggish silver visible beyond the nets, like a dull sword melted to a shimmering swim of molten metal, is the sea.

  This scene is utterly at odds with the barber beside me. If his character were more forceful, able to hold its own in my mind against the brilliance of the scene that lies all about him, I would be overwhelmed by the wild incongruity between the two. Fortunately, however, the barber is not so strikingly impressive. However overflowing he is with the old Tokyoite’s bravado, no matter how he might bluster and swagger, the man is no match for the vast and harmonious serenity of the circumambient air. This barber, who does his best to shatter the prevailing atmosphere with his display of self-satisfied garrulousness, has swiftly become no more than a tiny particle floating deep in the far reaches of the felicitous spring sunlight. A contradiction, after all, cannot arise where the relative strength, substance, or indeed spirit and body of the two elements are irreconcilable; it can be felt only when two things or people are on a similar level. If the discrepancy between them is too vast, all contradictory relationship may well finally evaporate and vanish, and the two instead come to play a single part in the great life force. For this reason the man of talent can act in the service of the great, the fool can be an assistant to the man of talent, and the ox and horse can support the fool. My barber is simply enacting a farce against the backdrop of the spring scene’s infinity. Far from destroying the tranquillity of spring, he is in fact achingly augmenting the sensation of it. I find myself savoring my chance encounter with such a happy-go-lucky pantomime buffoon on this vernal day. This ebullient braggart, all puff and no substance, provides in fact the perfect touch to set off the day’s deep serenity.